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and West Germany. In all, approximately 1,000 airframes were sent abroad,

complementing a tally of more than 4,000 for domestic use and making the

Phantom the most-produced Western fighter aircraft in the postwar period.

Although prolific by any standard, F-4 production numbers were dwarfed

by the MiG-21 Fishbed, which entered Soviet service in 1959 and was pro-

duced by the USSR, several Warsaw Pact countries, India, and China in

numbers exceeding 10,000 units over the next forty years. With a length of

51 feet 8 inches and a wingspan of only 23 feet 5 inches, the Fishbed was

much more compact than any of its contemporary Western adversaries. Al-

though its size limited the aircraft’s range, its light weight allowed speeds

surpassing Mach 2 and provided the first successful fighter and interceptor

combination in the Soviet air fleet. The PLAAF also made extensive use of

the Fishbed (designated J-7) after it was licensed by the Soviets in 1961. Al-

though early production numbers were kept low by deteriorating Sino-Soviet

relations, production of the delta-winged fighter began again in earnest in the

late 1970s and early 1980s and continued to the conclusion of the Cold War.

Taking on the true interceptor role was the MiG-25 Foxbat, which

entered service in 1970 specifically to counter the threat of Mach 3 U.S.

bombers that, although they never came into existence, were presupposed to

be the next logical step in aircraft development on both sides of the Iron

Curtain. Although the MiG-25 could generate enough thrust to propel the

aircraft to speeds upwards of Mach 3.2, unknown outside Soviet circles,

structural limitations meant that reaching speeds higher than Mach 2.8 would

almost certainly result in complete engine failure. Also unknown to the West

at the time was that the Foxbat had negligible maneuverability and close

combat potential; thus, Western air analysts found themselves presented

with an aircraft that they assumed could beat all challengers. This scare, later

proven to have been unfounded, resulted in increased research and devel-

opment into what would become the F-15 and F-16 programs.

The early 1970s saw a flurry of fighter deliveries to both camps in their

efforts to maintain an edge in air superiority. The MiG-23 Flogger and its

eponymous ground attack counterpart, the MiG-27, entered service in 1973

and 1975, respectively. In the United States, 1972 marked the operational

introduction of the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, which, when coupled with the

newly designed AIM-54 Phoenix missile, provided the U.S. Navy with a for-

midable interceptor. The F-14 would prove a major success worthy of replac-

ing the aging F-4. The F-14 also became the premier Iranian fighter.

January 1976 saw the first delivery of an operational McDonnell-Douglas

(later Boeing) F-15 Eagle, which set the standard in tactical fighter design

through the closing years of the Cold War. The Eagle amassed an enviable

no-loss record in air-to-air engagements, most often in the hands of Israeli

pilots fighting Syrian-flown MiGs. Following on the heels of the F-15 were

the General Dynamics (later Lockheed-Martin) F-16 Fighting Falcon in

1979 and the U.S. Navy’s McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18 Hornet in 1983.

With the skyrocketing costs of modern fighters, some West European

countries decided to keep pace with U.S. advancements by combining re-

search and funding. The result of a consortium among Britain, Italy, and

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Germany was the Panavia Tornado, a multirole combat aircraft (MRCA) that

first flew in 1974 and would enter service in its interdiction and strike con-

figuration with each of its sponsor nations as well as in an air defense varia-

tion in Britain. Dassault Aviation maintained its primacy within the French

aerospace industry when its futuristically named Mirage 2000 gained opera-

tional status with the Armée de l’Air in 1983.

Both the 1983 Mikoyan MiG-29 Fulcrum and the 1986 Sukhoi Su-27

Flanker were developed out of the Soviet-advanced tactical fighter initia-

tive, which called for direct counterparts to fourth-generation U.S. aircraft.

Although potentially equal in raw technical capability to the U.S. models,

the Fulcrum and Flanker were costly to produce and effected limited results

in combat, due largely to the widening gulf in pilot proficiency between the

East and the West.

As the Soviet military had concentrated almost exclusively on tactical

airpower during World War II, at the end of the conflict the Allies had a near

total monopoly on strategic bombers. Foremost among these was the vener-

able Boeing B-29 Superfortress, which had been employed solely in the

Pacific theater and was best known for the delivery, by the Enola Gay, of the

first atomic bomb over Hiroshima in August 1945. The B-29 continued

active service throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, most notably as Presi-

dent Harry S. Truman’s nuclear ace against the Soviets during the Berlin

Blockade as well as during the Korean War. The Superfortress proved so suc-

cessful, in fact, that Soviet leader Josef Stalin ordered clones produced by

reverse engineering from those that had been forced to land in Soviet terri-

tory in 1945. The resultant aircraft, known as the Tupolev Tu-4 Bull, entered

service in 1949 as the Soviet Air Force’s first nuclear-capable bomber and

was rumored to be true to its American antecedent right down to the bullet

holes found in one of the recovered B-29s.

The Soviets were not content to see the United States maintain heavy

bomber superiority. One of the first designs was the Tupolev Tu-14, a twin-

engine jet aircraft of traditional appearance produced from 1947 in a variety

of models and remaining in service until the 1960s. The first successful

Soviet bomber design, however, was the superb twin-engine Ilyushin Il-28

Beagle, which first appeared in prototype in 1948. It remained in first-line

service for some twenty years and flew in the service of the People’s Repub-

lic of China (PRC) throughout the Cold War. It was the counterpart to the

British Canberra and U.S. North American B-45. More than 10,000 Il-28

bombers were built and distributed to Soviet bloc nations. The Democratic

People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, North Korea) obtained a number of

Il-28s from the Soviets and flew them against the Republic of Korea (ROK,

South Korea) at the beginning of the Korean War in June 1950.

The first Soviet giant bomber was the huge Myasishchev Mya-4 Bison

swept-wing turbojet bomber, developed on the orders of Stalin beginning in

1949 as a plane that could reach the United States and return to base. It first

became known to the West in 1955 when, much to Soviet Premier Nikita

Khrushchev’s satisfaction, a scheme of repeatedly flying the limited stock of

Mya-4 Bisons over the reviewing stand at the Moscow air show achieved its

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